Editing Hávamál (section)

==Contents==

===''Gestaþáttr''===
The first section '''''Gestaþáttr''''', the "guest's section". Stanzas 1 through 79 comprise a set of maxims for how to handle oneself when a guest and traveling, focusing particularly on [[manners]] and other behavioral relationships between hosts and guests and the sacred [[Folklore|lore]] of [[Norm of reciprocity|reciprocity]] and [[hospitality]] to the [[Norse paganism|Norse pagans]].

The first stanza exemplifies the practical behavioral advice it offers:

"Gattir allar,<br />
aþr gangi fram,<br />
v''m'' scoðaz scyli,<br />
v''m'' scygnaz scyli;<br />
þviat ouist e''r'' at vita,<br />
hvar ovin''ir'' sitia<br />
a fleti f''yr''."<ref group=note>Quoted after the [[Codex Regius]].</ref>

''All the entrances, before you walk forward,''<br />
''you should look at,''<br />
''you should spy out;''<br />
''for you can't know for certain where enemies are sitting,''<br />
''ahead in the hall''<ref name=LARRINGTON14/>

Number 77 is possibly the most known section of ''Gestaþáttr'':

"Deyr fę,<br />
d''eyia'' f''rǫndr'',<br />
deyr sialfr it sama;<br /> 
ec veit ei''nn''<br />
at aldri deýr:<br />
do''m''r v''m'' dꜹþan hv''er''n."

''Cattle die,''<br />
''kinsmen die,''<br />
''all men are mortal;''<br />
''but words of praise will never perish''<br />
''nor a noble name.''<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Poetic Edda: The Heroic Poems|last=Bellows|first=Henry Adams|publisher=Dover Publications|year=2012}}</ref>

===On women===
[[File:Billingr's girl, bitch, and Odin by Frølich.jpg|thumb|Billingr's girl watches on while Odin encounters the bitch tied to her bedpost (1895) by [[Lorenz Frølich]].]]
Stanzas 83 to 110 deal with the general topic of [[romantic love]] and the character of [[women]].

It is introduced by a discussion of the faithlessness of women and advice for the seducing of them in stanzas 84–95, followed by two mythological accounts of Odin's interaction with women also known as "Odin's Examples" or "Odin's Love Quests". The first is an account of Odin's thwarted attempt of possessing the daughter of [[Billingr|Billing]]  (stanzas 96–102), followed by the story of the [[mead of poetry]] which Odin won by seducing its guardian, the maiden [[Gunnlöð]] (stanzas 103–110).

===''Loddfáfnismál''===
The '''''Loddfáfnismál'''''  (stanzas 111–138) is again gnomic, dealing with morals, ethics, correct action and codes of conduct. The section is directed to [[Loddfáfnir]].

===''Rúnatal''===
[[Image:Odin's Self-sacrifice by Collingwood.jpg|thumb|"Odin's Self-sacrifice" (1908) by W. G. Collingwood.]]
[[File:Jelling gr Stein 3.JPG|thumb|The younger [[Jelling stone]] (erected by [[Harald Bluetooth]] c. 970) shows the [[crucifixion of Christ]] with the victim suspended in the branches of a tree instead of on a cross.<ref>cf. Patton 2009:271.</ref>]]
'''''Rúnatal''''' or '''''Óðins Rune Song''''', ''Rúnatáls-þáttr-Óðins'' (stanzas 139–146) is a section of the ''Hávamál'' where Odin reveals the origins of the [[runes]].
In stanzas 139 and 140, Odin describes his sacrifice of himself to himself:


"Vęit ec at ec hecc<br />
vindga meiði a<br />
nętr a''l''lar nío,<br />
geiri vndaþ''r''<br />
''oc'' gefi''nn'' Oðni,<br />
sialfr sialfo''m'' m''er'',<br />
a þei''m'' meiþi,<br />
er mangi veit,<br />
hvers h''ann'' af róto''m'' re''nn''.

Við hleifi mic seldo<br />
ne viþ hórnigi,<br />
nysta ec niþ''r'',<br />
na''m'' ec vp rv́nar,<br />
ǫpandi na''m'',<br />
fę''l''l ec aptr þatan."


''I know that I hung on a windy tree''<br />
''[[Numbers in Norse mythology|nine]] long nights,''<br />
''wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,''<br />
''myself to myself,''<br />
''on that tree of which no man knows from where its roots run.''

''No bread did they give me nor a [[Drinking horn|drink from a horn]],''<br />
''downwards I peered;''<br />
''I took up the runes,''<br />
''screaming I took them,''<br />
''then I fell back from there.''<ref name=LARRINGTON34>Larrington, Carolyne. (Trans.) (1999) ''The Poetic Edda'', p. 34. [[Oxford World's Classics]] {{ISBN|0-19-283946-2}}</ref>


The "windy tree" from which the victim hangs is often identified with the world tree [[Yggdrasil]] by commentators. The entire scene, the sacrifice of a god to himself, the execution method by hanging the victim on a tree, and the wound inflicted on the victim by a spear, is often compared to the [[crucifixion of Christ]] as narrated in the [[gospel]]s.
The parallelism of Odin and Christ during the period of open co-existence of Christianity and Norse paganism in Scandinavia (the 9th to 12th centuries, corresponding with the assumed horizon of the poem's composition) also appears in other sources. To what extent this parallelism is an incidental similarity of the mode of [[human sacrifice]] offered to Odin and the crucifixion, and to what extent a Pagan influence on Christianity, has been discussed by scholars such as [[Sophus Bugge]].<ref>a sketch of the problem is given by  Kimberley Christine Patton, ''Religion of the gods: ritual, paradox, and reflexivity'' Oxford University,  {{ISBN|978-0-19-509106-9}}, chapter 7 "Myself to Myself: The Norse Odin and Divine Autosacrifice".</ref>

The persistence of Odin's self-sacrifice in Scandinavian folk tradition was documented by Bugge (1889) in a poem from [[Unst]] on the [[Shetland Islands]]:

''Nine days he hang' pa de rütless tree;''<br />
''For ill wis da folk, in' güd wis he.''<br />
''A blüdy mael wis in his side —''<br />
''Made wi' a lance — 'at wid na hide.''<br />
''Nine lang nichts,  i' de nippin rime,''<br />
''Hang he dare   wi' his naeked limb.''<br />
''Some dey leuch;''<br />
''Bid idders gret''.<ref name=bugge>[https://runeberg.org/bsheltsagn/1/0318.html Bugge, Sophus. (1889) ''Studier over de nordiske gude- og heltesagns oprindelse'', p. 308f.]</ref><br />

===''Ljóðatal''===
The last section, the '''''Ljóðatal''''' enumerates eighteen songs (''ljóð''), sometimes called "charms", prefaced with (stanza 147):

"Lioþ ec þꜹ ka''nn'',<br />
er ka''nn''at þioðans kóna<br />
''oc'' ma''nn''zcis mꜹgr"

''The songs I know''<br />
''that king's wives know not''<br />
''Nor men that are sons of men.''

The songs themselves are not given, just their application or effect described.
They are explicitly counted from "the first" in stanza 147, and "a second" to "an eighteenth" in stanzas 148 to 165, given in Roman numerals in the manuscript.<ref>Bellows separates the "seventeenth" item into stanzas 163 and 164. There is a gap in stanza 163, and some editors have also combined 163 and 164 into a single stanza.</ref>

There is no explicit mention of runes or [[runic magic]] in the ''Ljóðatal'' excepting in
the twelfth song (stanza 158), which takes up the motif of Odin hanging on the tree and its association with runes:

"sva ec rist<br />
''oc'' i rv́no''m'' fác"

''So do I write''<br />
''and color the runes''

Nevertheless, because of the ''Rúnatal'' preceding the list, modern commentators sometimes reinterpret the ''Ljóðatal'' as referring to runes, specifically with the sixteen letters of the [[Younger Futhark]].

Müllenhoff takes the original ''Ljóðatal'' to have ended with stanza 161, with the final three songs (16th to 18th) taken as late and obscure additions.